All or Nothing
by xCharlie-Groupiex
Summary: "Sod off, little one," she'd hiss, glaring disdainfully from her well deserved seat at the Slytherin table. Or wherever it was Sirius chose to bother her when asking the question of why they were suddenly no longer friends at that moment.mild blackcest.


**A/N: Just a pointless drabble. A key word from in here randomly popped into my head and the rest of this one shot quickly fell into place. I wanted to type it down and perfect the idea before I lost it :) I'm a big SiriusxBella fan, obvious enough. Abstract fics with some angsty/dramatic romance revolving around the two of them are just the best. If you don't like the pairing, don't read! To keep myself from being disturbed I just think back to when it was common for people to marry their cousins. I suggest you do the same. **

**Because if they weren't related they would be meant for each other =] **

**Input would be appreciated! Oh, and I'm not sure what the age difference between Sirius and Bellatrix is (though I believe I got it right) but in this fic it's five years. It's pretty weird for a second year to be so grown up the way Sirius is, but let's just say he matured early because of having no one rely on except his friends due to being estranged from his family at such an early age. Which I can see happening ;)**

**Rating: Rated T for language and mild Blackcest.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters.**

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All or Nothing:

It had started with a kiss, on a long, boring summer day back at Grimmauld Place; house of Bellatrix' mother's sister and the rest of the family. The place Bellatrix and everyone else there was room for in the manor had then been spending a lot of time, visiting their fellow Blacks. So how had the effect ended up to be this? How, if the cause had only been that single, all too short endured kiss?

It'd only been a kiss. A dare acted out against Bellatrix' better judgement—one of the many interesting things about her was that she never refused a dare. Her soft lips had been pressed to her _cousin's _of all people's. That alone should therefore prove the affair to have been nothing, have meant nothing at all.

At least, that had been the case in Bellatrix' book.

Because she was a good kisser, always had been and always would be, even if cousin Sirius hadn't really been able to measure up at the time. He'd been too nervous, too submissive, and Bella was much too skilled with her mouth (at producing snappy comebacks, use of harsh words, and it had turned out, lip locking, too) for that moment way back then to have meant nothing to him the way it had for her. This being what she told herself, anyway.

Those many years—more than a decade!-ago, Sirius had been much too young for Bellatrix kissing him to have been a good idea or for that matter fair, too. Even as she hadn't before, and even though the knowledge dawned on her through a sort of unreal stupor, Bellatrix realized this now. Cissy was a downright perv for what she had dared her elder sis to do. Great Merlin, they were cousins! Well, had been, rather. Now Sirius was dead.

Bella had been practising the art of kissing on the back of her hand once, as an almost fourth year. The way all girls at some point or other, whether they'll admit it or not, have tended to. When Narcissa walked in and caught the brunette beauty in the act, she ran and told everyone. Then, a few days later, took initiative to start up that fateful game of Truth or Dare. Yes; it was undeniable. Bellatrix loved her baby sister, even though she was a stupid bimbo for having married Lucius, this was true—but she was sick in the head.

Not that Bellatrix wasn't, though.

Even as Bellatrix didn't feel exactly good about what she'd done, the result of making out with Sirius being that he followed her around everywhere admittedly wasn't _not _enjoyable. More, it was flattering that that was what he did, and despite the age difference, they had some neat conversations. Even being a Slytherin, which exposed you to some brutal stuff, in her mind Bellatrix was still somewhat of a child herself. And so her younger cousin's company was one she was often glad to have around.

Sirius had a little crush on her, even, Bellatrix could tell. Unsure why this felt like a good thing and trying to hide from the smugness that constantly seemed to surface at being sure that his love for her was a fact, Bellatrix let his feelings be. There was nothing she would be able to do to change them, anyhow.

Sharp tones and shouting might keep Sirius away for a time (not that she put much heart into it), but in the end he would returned to her. Came back to her side having decided, as he always did, that he was ready to forgive and forget.

If she really put a lot of thought into it, Bellatrix could more or less get to the root of that smugness that usually appeared. Why shouldn't she be proud of being so admired by her cousin, though, anyway? He would grow up to be handsome, was already, really, of that Bellatrix was certain. It was in the Black genes. She had prepared him, gotten him ready for the world of being a man, even as it hadn't been her idea to be the person to do so.

So she should be entitled to a little pride for having been the first person to have ever, in that way, taken advantage of him. Especially since soon he would begin doing the same thing to others, himself.

Any lingering pride soon disappeared, however, immediately after her fool of a cousin was made a Gryffindor. Why oh why had she accepted Narcissa's challenge those years ago, gone through with such a thing? Now he was a Gryffindor, which was considered against Black regulations, and rightly so!

And no matter that, he continued following her around anyway! Despite the fact that he was of the lion house and she of the snake. Even though she was five years older and a hell of a lot more mature than him. Not that this, however, had anything to do with that.

He still loved her, Bella realized. She wasn't sure _when _exactly she had exchanged the description of what he felt for her from like to love, but there you are. It was obvious that he didn't understand the reason behind why she was shunning him. So Bellatrix wasted absolutely no time in explaining it to him.

"Sod off, little one," she'd hiss, glaring disdainfully from her well deserved seat at the Slytherin table. Or wherever it was Sirius chose to bother her when asking the question of why they were suddenly no longer friends at that moment.

"Why do you make such an effort to fucking embarrass me? You're the family disgrace. I don't ever want to talk to you again. Just leave me alone!"

A hurt expression would cross her cousin's face, but a steely anger was always quick to replace it. Next would come the attempt to save face in front of his new pitiful Gryffindor friends, who seemed to follow him the way he followed her. He'd talk back, trying and failing for his words to come out as harshly as hers had.

"Are you sure your real name is Bella_trix_, cousin?" He spat the last word. "Because what suits you is more along the lines of Bella-_bitch_."

She'd just laugh when he said things like this, though, laugh her ass off. Sirius thought he knew how to hurt her feelings, that he was capable of such a thing, but that was a joke. Bellatrix didn't have feelings. Not ones that he could perceive.

She absolutely didn't associate with him anymore, determined to get rid of him. And after about a full school year of trying, Sirius granted that wish.

"There's a rumour going around that he was your first kiss," one of Bellatrix' quidditch team mates informed her, in reference to Sirius, when she was fifteen.

Bellatrix' already heavily hooded eyes narrowed as she looked the bold girl up and down; in that appraising way girls do. She pulled her wand out of her back pocket where it was usually tucked for safekeeping. "Oh," was all she said, after a pause, holding it aloft nonchalantly but with a definite undertone of menace. "Good thing you don't believe everything you hear then, eh?"

The girl was just a reserve player, not from any particularly well known or credited pure blood family, and not in the brunette's year. So despite the smirk she was wearing the girl probably didn't have as much confidence trying to embarrass her with what she was saying as she was pretending to. Bellatrix, for one, didn't even remember the girl's name.

Those words had shut the girl up. But they wouldn't work on the others.

News of such gossip having gotten out reaching her sister's ears was no doubt Cissy's doing. The brat was always trying to one up her and make her look bad. It wasn't enough that she was the favourite and well considered the prettiest in Slytherin house (though Bellatrix herself had a vast number of admirers). She had to try to be even better than her sister than she was already considered known to be.

Past the protective love most older sister's feel toward their younger ones, Bellatrix hated her sometimes.

"You better be denying those rumours about us, kid," Bellatrix made sure to warn the next time she caught him in the halls alone.

A couple years had passed since the secret had first gotten out, and she was now in her seventh year of being at Hogwarts. Yet the rumour was still being wide spread.

Sirius rolled his eyes, probably surprised that she was addressing him at all because they no longer ever spoke. This was the first time in two and a half years that a word had passed between them—besides the occasional jinx, insult, or curse aimed.

"What's it to you?"

Not that he really cared, she guessed. He didn't seem to love her anymore. She didn't know why—it was a bloody good thing!—but for some reason, even with her lack of emotions and the failure he was to her, this made Bellatrix kind of mad. And, even if she would never admit it, a little sad too. _What was wrong with her?_

If Sirius didn't love her, nobody probably would.

Not Narcissa, who for everything Bellatrix did for her was still a backstabbing bitch. Not her mother, whose only concern that revolved around her middle born daughter was to ensure that she lived up to the family name and would soon be married off. Definitely not Andromeda, who Bellatrix wouldn't be caught dead with. Bellatrix couldn't think of _anyone _that would bother to put up with all her bad qualities without gaining anything in return the way her little cousin once had.

She was only ever lusted after, not loved. Not the way she wanted to be (though she wished she were above that), lot of good that would do. And if she never received it, how was she supposed to know how to love, in turn? Depending if she ever even got the chance to. It was a lose-lose situation.

In that area, Bellatrix was shit out of luck.

Better just to focus on her studies, then. The Dark Arts. The only true love she would ever have. They'd never treated her badly the way so many did. Didn't leave her by herself when she did just that like countless others had and would continue to, either.

Her only _real _friend.

"What do you think?" Demanded Bella, the answer making itself evident in her tone. Right now the current circulating rumours were only just that—rumours. But this could easily be influenced by whether Sirius denied them or not. And then what would she become?

A laughingstock, that's what.

Instead of the snide sarcasm and contempt she'd come to know from him—her fault they had been caused, this was true—Sirius sighed deeply, instead was honest. This was the most they'd spoken in a long, long time.

"I don't know what to think anymore, Bellatrix."

Her mouth, which had originally been open to spout a retort, closed suddenly. Bella stopped for a moment, mind whirring, staring into his eyes. She didn't feel guilty about the way she had acted toward him, per say.

She was, however, sorry that this was the way things had had to be. Even as a Gryffindor and a completely different type of person than the one she had known what seemed like so long ago, Sirius was still her cousin. Still the first person she'd ever kissed, still family (even as that made them having kissed a slightly disturbing thing and even though he'd ended up not living up to that name the way he was supposed to), and as much as she hated herself for it, Bellatrix still held a special place in her heart for him.

Pathetic as that may be.

"You should," she told him, making eye contact earnestly. It wasn't often that she did, and so Sirius paid rapt attention. "You should know that I think you made a big mistake, becoming a _Gryffindor_. And that everyone is, but especially me, outraged and disappointed."

Sirius glared, indignant again. "You say that like you think I had a choice! I am what I am, Bellatrix. I won't be changing." Silence as they frowned at each other, still alone together after hours in the halls where they had coincidentally happened to meet by chance, over a distance of only about three feet now. Having to be quiet but finding this hard to remember in the heat of the moment, after so much having for so long remained unsaid. "...And even if I could," he began again at last. "Even if I could change Houses, I wouldn't."

"I hate what you've become, Sirius," Bellatrix snapped, her voice a sharp whisper. Even as this was an exaggeration if anything, because she didn't hate Sirius. Didn't like him, sure. But still, deep inside, loved him and wished things were different.

Because he had been the only person in her life to have really loved her, _ever_. And so Bellatrix hadn't been able to help loving him back. And soon she cared about him so deeply again, though the feeling still mixed with anger and bitterness, that him having loved her in the first place no longer felt like it had been the cause.

"I hate what _you've _become!" He shot back. Eyes blazing. He was only twelve or thirteen, Bellatrix couldn't exactly remember. But the boy eyes that had once looked up at her with so much affection and devotion were hard now, the eyes of a very frustrated man.

Now it was Bellatrix' turn to sigh. She took a few steps backward until she was leaning against the wall. "That's not the same thing as 'I hate you'," she observed dryly. Not that it mattered much. "I'm still your cousin," she said.

"I know." Sirius' lip was curled, like what he was going to admit to next was something that tasted awful on the tip of his tongue. "I wish I could say the opposite, but that would be a falsity."

Why, he wasn't sure. Just like Bellatrix, in the same sort of position, who didn't have a very big idea as to the reasons behind why she felt or didn't feel certain feelings.

"I thought you loved me." Unplanned and unwelcome, the words ripped themselves from Bella's throat.

Still slightly smouldering, but now looking also quite defeated, Sirius shrugged a shoulder.

"Ever think maybe that's because I did?"

The seconds ticked by, although they felt more like minutes. Finally, after what seemed like so long even as Bellatrix remained at her spot against the wall, "...Maybe because I do?"

She gasped, then. She couldn't help it. The info was coming as a great surprise. "W-what?" Before then, she had never stuttered.

"Nothing," Sirius quickly removed his stare. Then, appearing to change his mind, he looked back at her. Hesitant but moving forward nonetheless. "You heard me."

That she had, though around everybody else Bellatrix was going to pretend different. Her gaze softened a little, but then transformed completely so that she was scowling at him. "Well you better hear me," she muttered, but it came across intense. "You're an embarrassment and a disappointment and a cad, and we're never going to be together. This doesn't change anything."

Even as her words were most definitely far from nice, a half smiled smirk appeared on young Sirius' face at their dishonesty. "That's not the same as saying 'I hate you'," he quoted her earlier words. Even in the dark, a blush became visible on Bellatrix' cheeks.

"Don't look so smug!" She growled, volume rising. "I...hate you. There, I said it! And it's—it's true," she told him, disconcerted that he still knew her so well.

"You're a filthy liar."

"Fuck you!" She was screeching now. "It's no lie!"

Sirius's jaw set. "It sure as hell is! And keep it effing down, woman. You're going to get us in trouble."

"Merlin, don't tell me what to do. You're just a child." She sniffed, glancing down at him as if with disgust. "I'm the one who's dignified."

"You're still a bitch, Bella."

She laughed, and it was much too loud and shrill for their current whereabouts and the after hours rule they were in the process of breaking. "Get some new material!"

"Shut up!" Sirius roared, lunging forward and gripping her shoulders roughly as if to better get his point across. If anybody saw them together, they would have much worse than a few rumours to deal with. Bellatrix asked herself why she wasn't blasting his ass to France for laying a hand on her, even as she knew the answer. Because having his hands on her really wasn't so bad.

"You're yelling too! _You _shut up, you stupid-" but Sirius would never know what the end of his cousin's sentence would have been, because in that instant his mouth came crashing down on hers, cutting her off and silencing her.

Bellatrix gasped for the second time that night, this time against his lips. What was he _doing_? Oh, if anyone saw...! But even while she was thinking these thoughts, Bellatrix felt herself surrendering to the tongue tracing patterns on hers, the arms which previously had been gripping her shoulders painfully hard softening until they were holding her gently, the grasp though still restrainingly tight.

Sirius was still just a boy—a preteen, if anything, the young age of only thirteen, Bellatrix now remembered. He was shaving, yes, but wasn't any taller than her. His performance in kissing, however, had much grown and expanded, progressed so much that Bella felt like she was being knocked off her feet. She evenslumped a little in her cousin's grasp, actually, falling back onto the wall slightly only to have him lift her back closer to his chest, kissing her all the while. Cradling her head in his hands like he was the older one and she the second year.

Eventually they pulled apart, chests heaving as they stared at each other, breathing heavily.

"I...I hope you know that that was completely against my will," Bella panted, trying to look angry but not really succeeding. She appeared more shocked and, strangely, confused.

"I only did it to make you be quiet," Sirius replied stubbornly. Though they both knew that this wasn't true.

"Whatever," Bellatrix mumbled back. She was tingling all over, affected by the kiss, much as she tried to hide it. "This isn't going to happen again."

She looked at the ground, bashful for some reason-shame, she knew really, and sadness that she couldn't in good conscience admit to Sirius the love she felt for him in return-then back up at him. "Well...I should go." Her tone was apologetic, even though she attempted to continue to sound cross. "You better deny that there is any truth to the rumours of that kiss."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, cousin," Sirius breathed, oozing self assurance. Except Bellatrix saw the agony in his eyes.

Then Bellatrix turned around and left, returned to the warm bed waiting for her in her dorm, where she shed a few tears. She would have to continue hating Sirius—not that she ever truly had, but knew she needed to make it appear that way, the way she had been since the unfortunate day he'd been sorted. She was going to become a Death Eater soon, and a Lestrange, too.

Sirius had his friends, she had 'hers'. They both knew what side they were on. And hopefully over the years the love she had for him would diminish, the resentment that was still there inside taking over instead. Maybe that was what would also happen for him. It wasn't what either of them, she imagined, wanted, but all the same it was what Bellatrix wished.

Because it was all or nothing when it came to the two of them. She'd rather be able to be happy with Sirius; she really rather would. But that wasn't an option, was not a possibility. So she would continue on the path that had been destined for her, he on his. Growing into what they were supposed to be, what also just happened to be enemies.

It was better this way. Better they knew where they stood, because Sirius could tell (he believed, anyway) what Bellatrix felt for him, too, but that their circumstances were too complex to be permitting.

They didn't speak again after that fateful night—couldn't bear to. Not knowing that they could never be together, not when the both of them and their feelings were so screwed up. Not until the day Sirius died, where both had become all but everything they had, even way back then, anticipated. Still, though, Bellatrix never forgot him, didn't stop feeling those feelings, which she really had had all along, of regretful love for him. Especially not that night.

The night she killed her cousin.

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**A/N: There it is! Hope you guys liked this. Took me a long time to write :) Please review!**

**xox Sacha**


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